Space heating stoves of a solid fuel burning type, and more particularly wood burning stoves, have come to be of greater importance in recent years as alternative sources for heat have been explored. In particular, recent technological advances have been applied to the fabrication of such stoves using steel plate and similar sheet metal components. Typically, such components are held in place and welded together to form a fabricated stove.
Such fabricated stoves have been found to present difficulties, over extended periods and under certain circumstances of use, in that welded and/or air seal joints have opened up. Distortion of the plate members of a stove, with resultant opening of air seal joints such as between doors and between a stove and chimney or cracking of welds, reduces the efficiency of the stove and may create a fire or smoke hazard. Loss of weld integrity may result from misuse of a stove, where the stove is brought to improperly high temperatures, or may upon occasion result from fatigue due to repeated expansion and contraction of the wall components of the stove.